8 comments:

Ross is brilliant. And there's something definitely wrong with his head.

I think this second definition of "dear," meaning "costly," is more common in the King's English than it is here in the Colonies. The only other time I've come across it is in Paul McCartney's "When I'm Sixty-Four": "Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight / If it’s not too dear / We shall scrimp and save."

Dear used to be common usage around here - I know all my relatives used to used it to mean 'costly'. I think it started disappearing in the US about 1950. I suspect the sappy meaning came from the real meaning, sort of like calling a baby "Precious". Either way, they cost you a bundle, black market or not. And the return policy sucks.